{"id":698,"date":"2012-06-25T22:07:08","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T03:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/?p=698"},"modified":"2012-06-25T22:07:08","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T03:07:08","slug":"thoughts-on-writing-from-tim-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/?p=698","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on writing from Tim Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In April I managed to go to Eurocon, the European Science Fiction Society&#8217;s annual convention. I&#8217;ve mentioned this <a title=\"Eurocon\/SFeraKon wrapup\" href=\"http:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/?p=549\">before<\/a>. While there I sat in an hour-long workshop given by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworksoftimpowers.com\/\">Tim Powers<\/a> (he&#8217;s an awesome storyteller, and really friendly to boot!). I took notes, but never posted them. Now I am. Enjoy! (N.B.: I&#8217;m tidying up the spacing and typos, but otherwise leaving it verbatim)<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Untitled by bojnberry, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bojnberry\/7154611960\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7260\/7154611960_bc810831e8.jpg\" alt=\"Untitled\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>When you are figuring out character traits:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why this character? Why is his story important?\u00a0Why, really?<\/li>\n<li>What would he do anything in the world to get?<\/li>\n<li>What would he do anything in the world to avoid?<\/li>\n<li>Make them face an intolerable choice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to keep it interesting for you and your readers<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deal with all the extra stuff in later drafts<\/li>\n<li>Use a calendar to keep track of events and use it to push yourself along<\/li>\n<li>Use the bits that affect &amp; attract you, not what is current &#8211; it&#8217;ll affect readers if it affects you.<\/li>\n<li>When you are done: Throw away the first three pages. Start \u00a0with the next full sentence<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s good to start with\u00a0dialogue<\/li>\n<li>First page: make it an easy doorway to step through<\/li>\n<li>Within a page or two: day or night? Man or woman? Inside or outside? Ages?<\/li>\n<li>Make it look like it&#8217;s happening to real people in a real place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Info-dumping : how to let the reader know what he needs to know?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make the description part of the action.<\/li>\n<li>A good\u00a0way To describe something\u00a0very complicated, have it be broken and need fixing.<\/li>\n<li>10000 ft to one mm zoom in to give description,\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0feel like info-dump, camera moving all the time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to end:<\/strong> after the crucial decision: write the consequences, but then walk away for a day. And cut off the last three pages, or wherever it&#8217;s apt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How much to trust beta readers:<\/strong> mechanical suggestions. Don&#8217;t listen to revision suggestions. Don&#8217;t give it to writers.<\/p>\n<p>There you go. Helpful hints at the very least! I hope the four (five?) of you find it useful!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"facebook-like\"><fb:like layout=\"standard\" show_faces=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/?p=698\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In April I managed to go to Eurocon, the European Science Fiction Society&#8217;s annual convention. I&#8217;ve mentioned this before. While there I sat in an hour-long workshop given by Tim Powers (he&#8217;s an awesome storyteller, and really friendly to boot!). [&hellip;] <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/?p=698\">&darr; Read the rest of this entry&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-writing","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-berry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1HpGK-bg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bojnberry.ca\/~berry\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}